


When the Hurly-Burly's Done

by throughtosunrise



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1427956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/throughtosunrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Favourite, Dahlia, and Zéphine have learned to make do with what they have, even if it isn't ideal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Hurly-Burly's Done

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StripySock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripySock/gifts).



There were only three of them left in the city now where there used to be eight, and with little reason left to keep each other’s company Favourite, Dahlia, and Zéphine went their separate ways. 

Those paths reconverged on a Sunday afternoon in late autumn, though, when a gust of wind caught up Dahlia’s too-thin shawl and carried it along the quay. She was obliged to give chase, of course, with winter fast approaching and the pelisse that had been one of Listolier’s last gifts gone to pay her last quarter’s rent. Her pursuit ended at the foot of an elm tree, where in the process of disentangling her errant shawl from its branches she caught sight of Zéphine, hurrying along the street on her way back from the market. 

It was an absurd sort of picture, Dahlia precariously balanced on the edge of a bench as she strained to catch a fold of her shawl in her fingertips and Zéphine looking on while she protectively cradled a loaf of black bread and half a molding cabbage in her arms. This was how Favourite, who by chance had taken a different route home than usual, found them.

“Why,” she exclaimed, taking in the scene, “you’re a long way from the Boulevard du Temple, girls, if you mean to go on at the theatre this evening!” 

“It’s all very well for you two to laugh,” retorted Dahlia, “as you’ve both feet on the ground.” She made one more desperate grasp at her shawl and felt it snag on a rough patch of skin, but that gave her enough of a hold to tug it free.

Favourite, relenting, reached out a hand to help her down from the bench. “You’re looking well, both of you.”

Zéphine made a wordless noise of indignation. “Well, she says, as if I haven’t been wearing the one dress for weeks on end now! It’s kind of you to spare our feelings, Favourite, or else I think your eyesight may be going.”

It was the longest conversation they had had since the “surprise.” As the weeks went on they had less opportunity and even less inclination to stop and talk, even if they passed one another on the street regularly; there would always be other women ready to take up the work abandoned by idle hands, and the remnants of what had been a tenuous friendship to begin with were just another frivolity to learn to do without. 

Still, none of them had found much time for amusement lately, and the prospect of a distraction was too tempting to ignore.

“I’m not that far gone yet, girls,” said Favourite, by way of avoiding comment on Zéphine’s fading dress and meager groceries, or the telltale signs of needle-pricks on Dahlia’s fingertips. “Not yet, anyhow.”

It somehow transpired that the three of them went out for dinner - not at Bombarda’s or even Edon’s, but a small, poorly lit ground-floor cafe with a little corner table just sufficient to seat three, provided they had no objection to nearly being in each other’s laps. It would have been more prudent to spare themselves the expense, but it would also have been an admission that none of them cared to make.

“Whatever became of your little actor across the way?” Dahlia asked over their meal, which consisted largely of boiled new potatoes. “Are you still so fond of hearing him declaim to the mice every day?”

“Oh, indeed,” Favourite said with a sigh.

Zéphine pursed her lips in only partially feigned indignation. “Indeed, she says ever so mournfully, as if she’s going to a funeral! You’re getting eccentric in your old age, Favourite. I don’t understand you any more.”

“I do quite adore him.” Favourite turned to fix Zéphine with a look of reproach; there was an emphasis to the words in the way her chin jutted out defiantly, but one with an underlying hint of resignation. “And he’s wild about me, that’s obvious.”

Dahlia drummed her fingertips on the table, then stopped abruptly and folded her hands in her lap, even though it was too dark in this corner of the cafe for Zéphine or Favourite to notice how ragged her cuticles had become. “Too wild, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” 

The question was less an inquiry, more a commiseration cloaked in the dispassionate tone of idle gossip. All three young women were too well versed in the language of carefully cultivated detachment, a language in which Fantine had never been fluent, to miss the distinction.

“Yes, my dear, you have it exactly. Not to mention, of course, that he’s perfectly satisfied to go on scribbling nonsense for twenty sous a day so long as it leaves him with plenty of time to carry on in the attic as he pleases.” Favourite paused to allow them a brief murmur of knowing dismay, then shook her head. “Well, I’m resigned to it, girls, there’s really nothing to be done. It’s all very well to have our fun, but there are things one must take into consideration, naturally.”

Dahlia raised her glass, half filled and only with water. “Such wisdom, Favourite! That’s something to be said for age, even if you are terribly eccentric now.” 

Insincere flattery, perhaps, and more than a touch of mockery, but even that was familiar and predictable enough to be comforting.

“To the Old One,” Zéphine chimed in, raising her own glass.

She might have — perhaps ought to have — put on a show of being affronted by this, but instead Favourite joined in the toast with a laugh. The guttering flame of the one candle on their table obscured as much as it illuminated. For a little while, at least, it would do.

**Author's Note:**

> This has gone through some ridiculous changes since my initial draft, and in the end I'm just profusely apologetic that it's so short.


End file.
